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tv   Anderson Cooper 360  CNN  November 3, 2024 5:00pm-6:01pm PST

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it doesn't have to be this way. >> reporter: election day, less than 48 hours away, for an anxious electorate weary of a campaign cycle unlike any other, it cannot come soon enough. there are so many pre-election moments, when we are out there speaking to voters and listening to what they have to say, why there is a real concern for what is going to have an postelection day. so many voters just wanted to be over. some people just want it to be over, whatever it's going to be, they wanted over. thank you very much. 29 hours away from the first votes cast on election day in new hampshire, we will be there with you, thank you for joining us.
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down to the wire, both candidates spend the final sunday blanketing the battleground. we will take you there and show you the potential -- the new pole out of i was stunned many. we will talk to the -- the chum canteen continues tell stories about election fraud in pennsylvania. -- we will talk to pennsylvania's top election official about what the campaign is claiming. thank you for joining us. one full day of campaigning and more than $70 million already cast. take a look. this is what sunday look like for vice president kamala harris, tim walz, the former president and jd vance. -- in east lansing just a few days ago. she did not mention the former president my name. >> two days to go. you ready?
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and one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime. and we have momentum. it is on our side. can you feel it? chair mac -- >> the former president speaking in macon, georgia. after making a prior stop in pennsylvania. he said he would not mind if someone shot -- in the audience. >> i have -- i have peace at last year. but all we have really over here is big news, right? and to get me, someone would have to shoot through the fake news , and i do not mind that so much. i do not mind. >> a campaign spokesman said he was "actually looking out for the welfare -- " which only
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makes sense if you do not actually [ inaudible ] >> they would have to shoot through the fake news . and i do not mind that so much. >> later in north carolina, he seemed to think he was in pennsylvania. >> we have great republicans running. you have one of the best of all right here. david mccormick, you know that. >> he was not there. he then correct themselves then, we just left him, he is a great guy. north carolina -- are in the final margin of error. it is this poll from iowa's foreign register getting a lot of attention. it shows vice president kamala harris three points ahead of the former president. we will talk to the poster behind that later on in the show. -- start this off.
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john, which candidate has the advantage in the electoral college, if any? >> if you look at the data, neither. essentially. you just put up the seven battleground states. attire all of them. harris claimed some momentum. you can see some numbers in the polling that suggests, maybe. a little bit of momentum for harris, maybe. this presidential race number 10 for me. i have never been here on a sunday night with a riso close and complicated. if you go through, the average of the poll shows that he. either one can win all states. you see the seven yellow states, they are toss-up. they could have a backup -- back and forth. if you just look at the polling right now, harris has a small but consistent lead in michigan and wisconsin. you put those for her. if you look at the average -- pennsylvania is a time. we will leave it there.
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trump has a slightly, either candidate can win this race. if you take our averages literally, trump has the lead. and a slightly out there. that get you to 262 for trump, 251 for harris. again, they could break. if it played out that way, the conversation we have been having since the beginning. the biggest prize, pennsylvania, would decide. under this scenario, harris won -- 257, trump wins that 268. the older one -- other one left on the board is pennsylvania. if you look at this, the "easiest" is to win the blue wall. if she wins, she is the next president of the u.s. can she do that? yes. is a also possible donald trump wins all three of those like he did? that is possible too. there is
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a little bit of data that suggest a slight advantage for her. i would caution everyone to say we will count them tuesday into wednesday. >> how does all of this compare back to 2016 and 2020? >> that is where it gets interesting. i want to remind you this day in 2016, we had hillary clinton projected to win. she was leading all of the blue states, she lost all three. be careful. let's get through the election. there are surprising. in 2020, we had a clear sense. we had biden over 270. in this map, you're looking to pick up georgia as well. in 2020, we had a clear climate. in 2016, we had advantage. in this campaign, you come back to where we are tonight, you have a campaign where you have seven battleground states, as close as they can be with perhaps a smidge of evidence of late harris momentum. >> john king, thank you. --
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david, you have seen a lot of campaigns. >> i have made it clear, i think i know nothing. >> i feel like we have had this conversation every day friday not know how long. >> i think humility is the order of the day. no one really knows. it is so close. nothing would shock me. if would that so it would not shock me if either of the candidates took five or more. it would not shock me if it was a very close advantage to one or the other. i will say this, when you have a situation like this, you look at the campaigns at the end of the campaign. is a profound difference. because kamala harris, people have criticized her for being cautious. caution and being deliberate, and executing at the end of a campaign, that the real advantage. her message is down. it is coordinated with her --
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here is the other thing, donald trump is as out of sync as she is in sync. >> talk about low energy. >> he said in an interview -- wrote another amazing piece in the atlantic. he reported that someone said to trump, he complimented him on the fact that his campaign was very disciplined. he said, what is discipline? what does discipline have to do with winning? he might find out on tuesday. because he is taken the campaign office message every night. now we are showing footage of him talking about reported getting shot. do you think anyone in the campaign headquarters what that to be the story the sunday before elections? if donald trump is keeping an enemies list at the
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end of this campaign, he might want to pencil in donald j trump at the top line. he will be the guy who beat himself. >> do you think this is as close as the polls show? >> i will remember -- remain humble. what i think is different is he is saying things about the press. -- that actually feel like it was a month ago. the madison square garden rally. we think about how time is moving with this campaign, especially since she's only been running for 100 days. i think there are people who will leave out of the house on tuesday morning and make a decision based on the comment. one thing i will not be humble on is i do not think there is that many undecided voters. i think there are. i think there are people looking for pathways to vote for, harris, and donald trump have given it to them. >> i would not be surprised if it went either direction. campaigns go down to fundamental. the data shows us
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nothing -- i look at who has the better ground game and the stronger closing message. very much, that is, harris. if you look at the doors they are knocking in every one of the battleground states, it is massively outpacing where the trump campaign should be. and the outsourced a lot of that. elon musk is behind some of it, the republican national convention is doing it. -- kamala harris has -- you money. she has add taken out at the spear in las vegas. >> it is what many people dream of. >> and i talk about a discipline closing message. she is not talking about trump, not calling him a fascist. juxtaposed to donald trump who in 2016, there was a clear message. brighter trade deal, america first, securing the border. i could not tell you now. the momentum is on one side, but i think it is statistically so close.
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>> as axelrod points out, i would love to talk about other things in that event this morning. i mentioned, there was a great ad out, rfk -- it's a fantastic commercial. but the messaging is not in sync. i will remind everybody, i was -- to think there was some sort of coordinated messaging, there was a better message, or tighter discipline, it was not true. there was more enthusiasm. trump is a leader of a movement, not a politician. there is more enthusiasm now. in 2016, it was chewing gum, tape. there was no organization. there was no get out the vote effort. we were
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working against the clinton machine. there was a grinding every day. >> is see the same candidate? >> yes. i want to remind you, you remember the access hollywood tape? donald trump was adina. i was there. i did the first public event with donald trump after that came out. i was going to that event thinking, let's see how many people show up. >> he was a dynamic candidate. he would not discipline, but dynamic. i was with him in 2020. he sounds much different. there is a lack of focus. >> i agree. the campaign in 2020 was a dead man walking. this campaign, there is energy. he was talking about -- he was in the wrong state. if you have been on a plane, you're in four different states and what they -- in one day. >> he is not the same guy. let me say one other thing. just as
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a practitioner who has been through this, one of the reasons why the comment that the vice president made on the view got so much after you tractor -- she said , i cannot think of where i would differ. i think she was being polite. it was the worst thing she could do. it seemed like she was affirming the message of the trump campaign against her. he is everyday going out and affirming her message about him. >> even if he is the same person from 2016 and 2020 -- people are tired of it. there was a freshness about it in 2016. i am not saying his base -- his base is riled up. we were talking about floors and ceilings. when you look at the gender gap, it just keeps growing and growing. when you have -- last sunday, when you
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talk about -- people do not like to be talked to like that. we did not like the access hollywood tape. it was something different. eight years later, it is a little old. >> new york times has a good editorial today when they go back and talk about the folks they have interviewed. they say, you may not like to hear this, but after interviewing 800 people, we think trump may win. this is the new york times. >> he certainly could win. >> they also talked to pennsylvania secretary of the commonwealth. -- fighting so hard, he said, to steal the election. also look inside the effort to keep election day safe and secure.
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looking at additional fencing going up this evening around the observatory in washington where the vice president and second gentleman live. vice president kamala harris had a surprise appearance on saturday night live alongside maya rudolph. >> i wish i could talk to someone who's been in my shoes. a black, south asian women running for president. presently from the bay area. [ laughter ]
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>> i don't really laugh like that, do i? >> a little bit. kamala, take my pamala. what do we always say? keep -- >> what is the vice president messaging in this final stretch tonight? >> vice president harris has just wrapped up her speech not long ago. her last michigan rally. you can see behind me people are clearing out. there without the people here. many of them have already voted. she was sending a message to those who have not. she said her campaign is about being for something. it's a dramatically different closing message than we have heard from her in the recent days. she was drawing a deep contrast with donald trump. she is trying to end on
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an optimistic and hopeful message, trying to encourage her supporters to get out the vote. they believe this is a contrast in its own right. they see how former president donald trump is adding his campaign. she is doing so in a different way. the michigan part of her campaign is in the books. her surrogates will be out throughout the day. tomorrow is all about pennsylvania. she has stopped throughout the commonwealth. her advisers tell us her best strategy is through the blue wall -- michigan, wisconsin and omaha. they're feeling optimistic. she also said that this race is not over. she encouraged everyone here, particularly those who have voted, to find others who have not. >> thank you so much. next is kristen holmes in macon, georgia. what is your sense of what the coming hours will look like? >> the former president calling
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-- closing message is not exactly what his allies would hope it would be. -- as i'm sure you played earlier in the show, he had a number of clips where he seemingly was going off the rails on a variety of different toxic -- topics. at one point bitterly complaining about poll the came out that show him trailing behind kamala harris. a lot of his speech was profanity laced. and he was sort of sluggish and hoarse voice and sometimes. they are all exhausted and ready for this election to be over. in addition to that, a lot of them are exasperated. particularly
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some of his allies that really believe he can win on tuesday. however, they believe the messaging he is been putting forward, particularly what we saw today, is not the way to do it. i saw one allies say, how hard is it to just go out there and say,, harris broke it, i am going to fix it. instead, we have heard him go on a number of tangents. a lot of them with dark rhetoric as he heads into tuesday. again, his campaign has been feeling optimistic. or slightly optimistic. they have been looking at different tea leaves. every single person you talk to knows every vote count. they believe this rhetoric is not helpful towards his campaign as he heads into tuesday. >> is a just my monitor, or you cannot see his face? >> he has a hat on. it is underneath a shadow right now. it is kind of covered up. if you look closely, you can see it there. he definitely has a shadow look going on. >> i was looking through the monitor thinking it was the monitor. thank you so much. back with the panel. was it a
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good idea for her to visit -- saturday night live? >> it is a risk , because you could bomb and that's not good. that was a funny little skit. but the best part about it, she seemed very relaxed, she seemed human and got to show a little self-effacing humor. which is also winning in a politician. they took a risk, and they diverted the schedule a little bit. it was a good thing to do in the final weekend. >> there was a final moment where -- laughed at a bulgur joke someone talked about the vice president. i want to show this. >> it is terrible when kamala says she worked in mcdonald's. she never worked there. i did a little bit. this place is amazing. >> just remember, it is other people saying it. it is not me. >> yeah.
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>> i mean, we do not like to be called prostitutes as women. it is as simple as that . is the leader says it, that is what followers do. they feel they are giving the permission structure. which is why for the last four years many of us have said there is a responsibility to stop his language and behavior. i want to point out one thing the reporting on momentum. the word momentum we talk about sports, it means you are behind, but it is moving in your favor, or you are tied. that is what i keep on hearing from harris campaign. we are not winning yet, but we can score enough points to get over. even if just by one point. that is what she's asking her supporters to do. we also see this in the rallies. we talk a lot about comparison. i remember rallies in 2016. i remember beyonce, jc and bruce springsteen. these rallies and -- are not the same. she has
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glorilla coming out. she had cardi b coming out, who said she was not going to vote. -- >> -- >> my dad would be proud. >> i think the most interesting thing to watch is the gender gap. it can go either way. donald trump might've had a brilliant strategy to readout that will reach out to these white male voters. -- do those actually translate to a large number showing at the polls? i do not know. in doing so, they did alienate women. there was not a direct over church women. on top of that, you fall into the tony hinchcliffe guy talking at your rally. on the flipside,, harris have a 10 to 15% advantage. if you have more
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women turning out, that could determine the election. it is just which side turns out in greater force. >> we watched john king say it may come down to one state. pennsylvania. >> you love that. >> i wish i was there right there -- now. when you look at the numbers -- and i talked to some other leading government heads in pennsylvania. i said, where do you think she falls in the vote total? look at the math. she is not going to outperform biden, she will -- she will not outperform biden in philadelphia. biting got more votes than obama in 2008 because he was viewed as a philadelphian. a pennsylvania. where is she going to win the big numbers? trump has been increasing his totals. inch by
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inch. piece by piece. he had a 90,000 and 120,000 -- if he has 150,000, it is about losing less. if kamala harris does not crush it in the philadelphia suburbs , she is going to lose. >> earlier, i said, it seems like he is intentionally doing things to pump up the vote in the philadelphia -- >> that is one of the issues. his ads have been running nonstop. you probably see this are jc -- add. rjc add. they're scared about anti-semitism, and they think trump will make them safer. -- >> i think you want her to perform like obama 2012 in philadelphia, where he actually
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increased his black voter turnout by 4%. if she can do that -- people thought he maxed out in some places, he did not. he found people who did not engage in the democracy. if she can do that -- >> the romney campaign thought they would -- >> i want to clarify something. i was not saying he was pumping up the vote for himself. everything he is doing is pumping up the vote for her in suburban areas around the country. >> this will be a game of inches. it will be the nikki haley op-ed. we do not like donald trump, but on the economy, israel, we think he is a better. >> i think nikki haley might be one of the only haylee voters for trump. when you have nearly half 1 million puerto ricans in pennsylvania, and you have the gas and the dumpling -- doubling down, that is what will matter. and the you have icons of latino pop culture coming out, like jennifer
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lopez, that matters. late breakers are real. we say there's only whatever percentage, there are people making up their minds as we speak. i am hearing from them every single day. >> they are not just independent, white voters. in addition to the campaigns -- ground game, there are millions of doors being knocked by -- people working in statehouse races, not one 100,000 doors. those are the things you also look at. >> in the state of pennsylvania, we have a very big senate race. david mccormick is spending god's money -- he will pull out a lot of voters. it might not be trump voters. there is a unique dynamic. >> his ads have been very good too. >> it will make it much easier
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for people to vote for trump and mccormick together. >> thank you very much. coming up, more on that new poll from iowa. why the poster who conducted it has an exceptional track record predicting i will races. he joins us next.
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earlier we showed you the surprising poll out of iowa. it shows vice president kamala harris up three points over former president donald trump. which is a good turnaround from the st. paul in september. that number is still within the margin of error. there is no clear leader. but a swing like this from such a well-respected pollster -- this might be indication that harris may over perform in the midwest. even in battlegrounds like wisconsin. today while speaking in pennsylvania, the former president attacked the pollster and said it was unfairly skewed to favor harris. >> i have a poll on 10 points
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up in iowa. -- why would they announce a poll that highly skewed toward liberals and democrats? when you read it, they interviewed far more democrats. why do they do that? i think there is a law they have to stay that. because they would prefer not having to say that. >> i am joined now by j ann selzer. -- alongside david axelrod and john king. how surprised were you at this -- these numbers, would you make of them? and feel free to respond to with the former president said. >> thank you for having me. we first saw the numbers on tuesday morning, monday night was the first night in the field. i walked into the office -- i saw the unweighted data. it had harris leading. my assistant said, do you see the data? i said, i would like to see the weighted data. that is
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how we take care of what would make our poll unrepresentative. we align things with unknown population and we extract from a larger group of people who meet our definition of likely voters. that is people who have already voted, and people who say they will definitely vote. when former president trump says we interviewed more democrats, that is what came out of our data. we did nothing to make that happen. i'm a big believer of keeping my finger off -- my dirty fingers off the data. we did it the way we did it. when he won in our final poll twice, and two election cycles, the very same method. >> he said you are an enemy of his. clearly, that is not the case. you have had polls in the past which have shown that hillary clinton would not do as well in iowa as a lot of people thought. you have delivered
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news which is upset democrats and republicans and people all over in the past. >> right. without favor toward one side or the other. i think the best news i could deliver, this is true of my non-election related to clients. i can deliver my best shot at what is true. then you know what you are working with. and then you can make adjustments as you needed to. i cannot see there is any advantage to me or my career in messing with the numbers to make it look a particular way. there is no upside. >> i want to bring in john and david axelrod. they know you and respect you and i know they want to ask questions. john, what sticks out to you? >> quick piece of history. this is the 2020 map. let's bring out iowa. people are probably saying, that cannot be possible. look at this big trump win in 2016. but you have mr. axelrod at the table as well. iowa voted overwhelmingly
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for obama. the people of iowa follow the news. and there are a lot of independents. as i bring it up, i want to say, despite what the former president just said, i have known j ann selzer for a long time. she is one of the best in the business. the data is what the data is. here is interesting. among female voters in iowa, overall, a 20 point gap. 56% to 36%. now i want to bring up independence. where are the independents going? these are independent female voters. look at that, 57% to 29%. my question is, why? the six week abortion ban in iowa took place a few months ago. trump has been pretty dark
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in his rhetoric, insulting the vice president. is is something he is saying? something she is saying? is it something within iowa changing the climate? >> all of the above. i cannot single one thing out. i will know, our previous polls of this year, in february and june, trump lead with independents. what happened between june and september? by the left the ticket. harris joined it. there was a surge of enthusiasm. there was a surge in the proportion of people we talked to who said they would definitely vote. that was our criterion in june. now, we have an additional criteria if you have already voted. especially, among older people , it's over 90% incidents who say they are going to vote. they tend to vote for kamala harris. and women in that age group specifically and strikingly. >> let me ask you something. i do not want to geek out here. you sort of touched on it. we hear a lot of pollsters -- talking about nonresponse bias to try to explain why polls
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have been so off in the past few cycles in capturing some of this confusion of trump voters that they had not spoken with, that had not been included. they're trying to find ways to wait there polls to account for that and cut that number down. you do not believe that is the way to go. explain it. >> i can control what i can control. i can give weight to known parameters. >> what does that mean? >> it would sound anti-democratic. some people get a little bit more than one vote, some people get a little bit less. if we end up in our sample, with all adults in the state of iowa, and if we have too many who are older, or too
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many that are women, we adjusted to look like the census. -- congressional district, they're not all aged appropriately. some have state universities and someone. we want to adjust our data so it looks like a cross-section of the state of iowa when it comes to age, geography, race , education -- not so much anymore. from the bigger pool, over 1000 people, we pull out 808 who met one of our criteria -- they have already voted, or they say they will definitely vote. from that cross-section, if older people are more likely to say they are going to vote, they show up in more plentiful numbers in our likely voter sample. it is that easy. what i say is i am allowing my data to reveal to me this future
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electorate. and the people who are using the exit polls, or the recall vote, which i do not think of as very reliable at all -- i call that polling backward. they are adjusting their data to fix the last mistake. i have always allowed my data to show me, without fear or favor, my best shot at with the future electorate would look like. >> i want to second john's point. i have worked with you over the years. you have polled races i was involved in. you are a person of great integrity and skill. when you say something, people listen. >> j ann selzer, great to have you on. of neck, the former president tries to scare voters in pennsylvania. --
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in his speech earlier today in pennsylvania, the former president spent minutes stoking fear about voter fraud in pennsylvania. >> like what is going on in your state. every day, they're talking about extending hours. who ever heard of this stuff? we should have one day of voting and paper ballots. they spend all of this money, on machines. they are going to say, we may take an extra 12 days. and what do you think happens during that 12 days? what do you think happens? these elections have to be
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decided by 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 on tuesday night. bunch of crooked people. these are crooked people. >> i'm joined by pennsylvania secretary of the commonwealth. i appreciate you being here. the former president offers no evidence for what he is saying. would you say to these allegations? he is talking about there should be one day of voting, paper ballots. he is claiming it may take 12 days to count all the votes -- their allegations -- their allegation of 12 days of cheating. >> it must be some sort of misunderstanding. every voter in pennsylvania, whether they vote by mail in advance, or in person on election day, they are voting using a voter verified paper ballot. there is a paper ballot record of every
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vote that is cast in pennsylvania. to tabulate the results. it is used in two audits to ensure those results are accurate. >> they have been lying about paper ballots -- even the dominion voting machines, those have paper ballots. on wednesday, a pennsylvania judge ordered a three day extension to the county deadline for in person and mail-in ballots. there were allegations of election interference. can you help with -- explain what happened ? >> in pennsylvania we don't have early voting the same way many other states have early voting. we have mail ballot voting in advance of election day. and we have a voting in person on election day. there is an opportunity for voters to go to the local board of elections to apply in person for a mail ballot. they file an
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application. the board of elections processes that application. if approved, provides the voters with a mail ballot they can complete on the spot and return right then and there. bucks county was one of the manti counties -- many counties that had a lot of people showing up. there was -- to extend the hours to apply to vote by mail for three additional days. it has been interesting, and it's a very peculiar phenomenon this election cycle. i have ran elections for philadelphia in 2020 . republicans, and i am a republican, they have gone from suing to close down a voting election offices for voting by mail to seek to have those office hours extended for days to have people vote by mail. >> how frustrating is it for
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you? obviously, this is probably just the tip of the iceberg of what we expect to see over the next few days or weeks. you are republican. you care about the sanctity of the vote. there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. there has not been, these are life. how frustrating is it? >> anderson, i was a republican election commissioner in philadelphia. elected in 2011 and re-elected in 2015 and re-elected in 2019. i have investigated hundreds of allegations of voter fraud. that is why i feel like i can speak with some degree of authority and knowledge about when it occurs and what it does not. when it does occur to the extent that which there is evidence of it, and allegations of widespread voter fraud in pennsylvania are completely and totally unfounded. voters should have confidence that we will have a free, fair, safe and secure election in 2024. just as we had in 2020.
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>> al schmidt, i appreciate you what you do and your time. coming up next, election security efforts in one battleground state .
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police forces across the country increasing security efforts for election day and beyond with deep divisions over the elections -- police and a number of cities are on alert. >> know where the polling locations are. do not go in less you are exquisitely requested to respond. >> reporter: police department in battleground states across the nation are gearing up for the 2024 election like never before. >> i've been in this business for 25 years. i cannot think of an election where we have had as much planning and preparation for safety . a lot of that has to do with what happened on january 6th. >> reporter: cnn granted access to a madison wisconsin police briefing on what officer should anticipate.
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>> what we look for in criminal intelligence is not only day of protecting the ballot. if there's going to be any protest activity. >> is interesting because the battleground states, you guys have all been talking. >> thousands of police chiefs across the country are taking this seriously. if something happens in a part of the state, i want to be aware of it. i want to be able to let folks know, this is what happened in georgia, or arizona, or pennsylvania. >> reporter: it is not only problems on the ground that worry police chiefs. they are concerned with social media. >> this information worries me. we will be responsible for correcting that narrative. >> reporter: in philadelphia, quarter canceled on election days to free up court officers. -- in arizona, plainclothes
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officers may deploy in parking lots of voting sites. >> our first path will be to de-escalate and see if we can diffuse the situation. >> reporter: a lot of focus on november 5th , election day, but law enforcement is concerned about the days after the election as votes are being potentially tally. and also, the certification process, which takes place here at the capitol in december. >> the apprehension is about what happens after. if the will of the people is not done, or people do not accept the result. >> this is your ballot, activated. >> reporter: for pat butler, who is been an election volunteer for nearly five decades, she says she is not worried. >> for me to see people coming out to vote is remarkable. >> reporter: do you feel like you need to prepare differently? >> we want to try to prepare for worst-case scenario. but i
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do believe depending on who wins or loses, the tenor of the conversation will change. we hope there is a concession speech and it allows people to heal and move on , and put what appears to be a divided country back on the same path. >> have there been any specifics? >> so far, everything seems to be -- at polling sites. what is interesting is the days and weeks after. it will take a while to get a decision, that is what they're really worried about. they feel like that is what people do. it is a concern about the days and weeks after. >> cnn's countdown to election day continues -- i will see you tomorrow.